As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements can vary between different applications, information handling systems can also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information can be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems can include a variety of hardware and software components that can be configured to process, store, and communicate information and can include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system may include a large number of individual servers and associated storage and peripheral devices. A significant portion of the cost of operating and maintaining an information handling system can be associated with the electrical power consumed by the equipment. Businesses that provide computational services, such as data centers, therefore may choose to pass along energy costs to their clients. To do so, the power consumption of the information handling system often is recorded by a centralized controller. However, the centralized controller can fail or may be taken off-line, thereby resulting in the loss of power consumption information for the duration that the centralized controller is inoperable or absent from the information handling system. This loss of power consumption information can render it difficult to accurately determine the energy costs of operating the information handling system.